Is paying for an inspection on a house you already own worth anything?

Question

I own land and one small house I've held for six years. An inspector I met at a county thing pitched me on what he calls a maintenance inspection. Same walk-through as a purchase inspection, once a year or every couple of years, on a house nobody's buying or selling. His price was $340 for my place.

The case for it, as he made it: you find the failing water heater before it's on the floor, you get a written record of condition that helps if you ever file an insurance claim or sell, and you're paying someone whose whole job is noticing deferred maintenance instead of relying on yourself walking past the same crack for six years.

The case against, which is mostly my own: I already know this house. I know the roof is 14 years old and the furnace is 11. A report telling me those numbers again costs $340 and changes nothing, and if it does find something I'd have found it eventually when it broke, at roughly the same cost.

I don't have a strong view, which is why I'm asking. Curious what people who own more doors than me actually do, and whether anyone has had a maintenance inspection find something that paid for itself several times over.

jordan_ellis2 · Answer

For one house you know well, I'd guess no. For a portfolio you don't visit, obviously yes. The interesting case is the middle, three or four houses you see twice a year, and I have no idea where the line falls there.

ehernandez74 · Answer

The question I'd ask him is what he's actually going to do differently from a purchase inspection. If it's the same 30 item report with the same "recommend evaluation by a licensed plumber" on everything, you get a list of things to go pay other people to look at. If he'll give you a five year sequencing plan, roof year three, furnace year two, that's a different product and worth more than $340.

Ask him for a sample maintenance report before you decide. Purchase reports and maintenance reports should not look the same and often do.

tonyv88 · Answer

I sell this as part of management on 31 doors so take my bias as given. Two findings in the first year paid for the whole program across the portfolio. A slow supply line leak behind a laundry wall that had been going long enough to soften subfloor, and a flue that had separated at the joint on an 18 year old furnace.

The flue is the one I think about. That's not a money finding, and a tenant wasn't going to report it.

arbor, your case is weaker than mine because you're in the house and I'm not. Absentee ownership is what makes it pay.

mikeoconnell7 · Answer

I've been pricing this product because it's one I may end up offering, and the numbers are interesting. The margin only exists on route density, and one house at $340 is a great day for the inspector and probably a mediocre purchase for you. If he's charging you full purchase-inspection rates for a maintenance walk he hasn't actually built the maintenance product yet, he's just relabeled his existing one.

monica_tran3 · Answer

lantern nailed it. $340 for a single detached visit is transaction pricing. I pay $110 a unit on a standing agreement because my guy does six in a day, and that price reflects the fact that nobody's waiting on him.

arbor, if you want this, get two or three neighbors who own rentals on the same day and negotiate.

angela_burke · Answer

We do a version of this in house rather than buying it. My lead tech has a 40 point sheet and hits every managed property in April. It's not an independent report and it wouldn't help anyone in an insurance dispute, but for the purpose of catching deferred maintenance it does 80 percent of the job at a labor cost I already carry.

Where it falls down is that my tech is not going to write up my own crew's bad work. That's the actual argument for paying an outsider, and it's the argument the inspectors themselves make about independence. I don't have a good answer to it.

gregpowell66 · Answer

Two things a maintenance inspection is genuinely bad at, from the build side. Anything behind a wall, and anything about remaining life. He can tell you the roof is 14 years old, which arbor already knows. He can't tell you whether it has three years or nine, and neither can I without getting on it.

What it's good at is the boring stuff that kills houses slowly, grading against the foundation, a dryer vent packed solid, a water heater strap. arbor, if you've never had someone look at drainage around your foundation, that alone might be worth the visit once.

karen_whitfield · Answer

Six years and you know the house. Skip it, and put the $340 toward the furnace you already know is 11 years old. I'd feel differently if the house were 90 miles from you or if a tenant lived there.

ryanmck27 · Answer

Reading this thread while studying for licensing and the split is basically absentee versus resident owner, which is not how the pitch is usually framed. Every marketing page I've seen sells maintenance inspections to homeowners living in the house, and the people here who actually buy them are managers with doors they don't see. Filing that away.

Is paying for an inspection on a house you already own worth anything?

9 replies